Bad Journalism — A short article commentary on the press circus in Zambia

Reading newspaper articles on current issues gripping Zambia, one
wonders what a cheap government mouthpiece not only the "Times of Zambia" but
also "Zambia Daily Mail" & "ZNBC" have degenerated into.

So much has
been speculated about over the pact between PF & UPND. Whereas it is not
taboo to mention tribe as a problem (wherever that may apply), we feel it is
dangerous to play carelessly around with such potentially explosive concepts, in
papers owned by GRZ. One would ask oneself why the two political parties in
question entered into a pact / partnership in the first place, if there were
indeed any tribalism (or "tribalistic motivations") at play(!). To our
observation, they've so far seemed to be in tune on most major issues. We are
inclined to think the pact problems between PF & UPND have more to do with
antagonistic personal (and not necessarily 'tribal') ambitions of the two
leaders in question (Sata & Hichilema) than with specific matters of
tribe.

Our observation is that all these government-owned media outlets
("Times of Zambia", "Zambia Daily Mail" & the "ZNBC") have suddenly adopted
this really cheap journalism of bootlicking and choosing to address non-issues,
in their misguided "age of pluralistic politics"; … even though pressing issues
that interest Zambians or are for the betterment of Zambia keep repeatedly being
given the boot or simply get shoved aside, as if to distract
Zambians.

Why don't the able editors of these mouthpieces do a better job
by coming up with at least one convincing analysis or a learned explanation of
why FJT Chiluba was acquitted last year on damning corruption charges, why his
acquittal was not appealed against by the DPP and why, yet again, Chiluba's
London judgement that nailed him against the wall in 2007 has now been quashed
in Lusaka, Zambia, by an organ of GRZ? It is not insulting to assume the
journalists responsible for promulgating such news are merely doing their job to
feed their stomach; or what else must we say of a paper owned by the government,
controlled by the government or whose lieutenants themselves seem to be
owned by the government, being nothing other than presidential or
partisan appointees?

(The equation here of course being, as ever,
Government = Party in power = MMD!).

It's rather frightening how all the
government's news mouthpieces in Zambia today disregard real journalistic
freedoms and lack integrity by choosing to simply badmouth the whole opposition,
avoid real issues of interest, shut up the voice of reasonable Zambians, give
empty credit to the bad ones, and actually address no real issues.

The
kind of news titles found splattered over their pages tell it all. We dug out a
few examples:

This is supposed to be the same "Times of Zambia"
that, barely a year ago, featured articles such as (on 22-06-2009) bearing
titles like "Convict Chiluba -
State", in which it wrote:

"The State has submitted that the court should convict former
Second Republican president, Frederick Chiluba, and his two co-accused persons,
former directors of Access Financial Services (AFS) Faustin Kabwe and Aaron
Chungu, on all the 12 counts they are each charged with. The State submitted
that the evidence before the court proved beyond any reasonable doubt that the
accused persons committed the offences under each count in respect of which they
stand charged."